Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/285

Rh was soon followed by so perfect a harmony between the civil liberty of the people, the privileges of the nobility and clergy, and the prince's prerogative, that I really think there never was in the world a government so well tempered, as that of each part of Europe, so long as it lasted. Surprizing, that the corruption of the government of a conquering nation, should have given birth to the best species of constitution that could possibly be imagined by man !

RISTOTLE is greatly puzzled in treating of monarchy. He makes five species; and he does not distinguish them by the form or constitution, but by things merely accidental, as the virtues or vices of the prince; or by things extrinsecal, such as the usurpation of, or succession to, tyranny.

He ranks among the number of monarchies, the Persian empire and the kingdom of Sparta. But is it not evident, that one was a despotic state, and the other a republic?

The ancients who were strangers to the distribution of the three powers in the government of a single person, could never form a just idea of monarchy. Rh